Offspring of Oblivion
by DothThouSee
Summary: I was but an explorer in way over my head. I am sorry for what I have done.
1. Chapter 1: Discovery

Many wonders exist in our land of Skyrim, some yet to be discovered, some best left undiscovered. My name is Joirel thorgenik, former adventurer of Skyrim. I once did much travelling during my days as an explorer. I met many people and explored many places in my travels. I've seen things most would say are myths. Countless times I have gotten into trouble, but I have always been able to get out of it. Until the 14th of Frostfall, 42 days ago. People still have no idea what happened or what caused all of that chaos for the matter. As I have said I had seen many things in my travels, but nothing could have prepared me for what I uncovered in that ruin. Perhaps if I hadn't tripped on that artifact, perhaps if I had not gotten lost in those mountains, none of this would have happened. Alas, it did and I am to blame. I understand whoever you may not know what I am talking about. Allow me to explain. It began when I was on one of my treks in the mountains near Riverwood. I was going to visit High Hrothgar to sketch a drawing of it for documentation when a massive blizzard began. In the fray I lost sight of the path and veered off into Talos knows where. I became lost and needed to find shelter before I froze to death. I was stumbling blindly through the snow when I tripped over what I thought was a rock. I got to my feet and realized that I had tripped on an ancient Nordic shield. I realized I must be near a Nordic ruin. I groped around blindly till I found a metal object covered in snow. I brushed off the snow to find a door underneath, engraved with language that I had never seen before. I forced it open and ducked inside, shutting it behind me. At first I couldn't see so I pulled out a scroll from my backpack. It was mage light. I read it aloud and a small ball of light appeared in front of me. Reaching into my pack I pulled out a jar then caught the orb in it. Holding up the jar to observe my surroundings I discovered that I was indeed in a Nordic ruin. I observed the walls to see what information they might hold. Written on the wall was a message. It read "Among this crypt lies an ancient evil sealed away deep in the depths. Beware, if released only the blood of dragons shall seal it away." I began to try to make sense of the message when the smell of rotten flesh hit me and the sound of bones creaking could be heard behind me.

"How could I have been so careless?" I thought to myself. "Of course there would be draugr in here, after all it was a nordic ruin." Quickly I covered up my jar of mage light with me cloak and hid behind a rock. In the darkness I could see the undead monsters eyes glowing blue. I hadn't brought my sword with me because I didn't think I'd be doing any fighting. What's worse is the fact that it was standing between me and the door out. There was only one way to go now, deeper. Slowly a snuck by the creature and deeper into the darkness. Pulling out my jar again I kept a cloth on it to keep the light dim to stay hidden. I recognized that I was on a descending spiral staircase. Following it down I found a large room where parts of the wall were made out of ice. It wasn't dark anymore at least, but that made hiding harder. Quickly checking for any draugr that might be near, I crawled through the room. To my surprise there was a table covered in valuables. Gold! Entire stacks of it! There was also jewellery. I was about to reach for it when I stopped. I needed to be careful to not draw any attention from the draugr. Carefully I slipped pieces of gold and jewellery into my pouch making as little noise as possible. I was just about done when my elbow brushed off of a gold goblet, knocking it off the table where it stood, and onto the floor. The clang from it echoed off the walls of the ruins. The echoing got quieter but a new noise erupted from the dark passages, deep growling. I had to hide quick! They were coming my way and I was in the open. Then I noticed that the stone block covered in treasures. I realized it must be a coffin. The draugr were getting closer, almost at the room. "I could use that to hide!" I thought to myself and began to push on the lid with my all my weight. Finally it budged and with a final shove the lid came off. What happened next was truly horrifying. A large cloud of white and black smoke shot out of the coffin and formed into an orb in the are. Looking at it I was instantly paralysed with fear. I knew it was evil, I could just feel it. I cowered to the floor unable to do anything. Then the being that had formed in front of me let out a terrifying screech and shot off into the dark tunnels around me. It literally split into each and every one of the tunnels. It took me awhile but I regained my senses, got to my feet and listened. The sound of draugr had stopped. Cautiously I crept toward the tunnel that I had come from and to my astonishment, three draugr stood there. They were frozen solid.


	2. Chapter 2: The chaos begins

Following the row of frozen draugr I climbed the spiral staircase back to the entrance and found the door open letting in the harsh weather. I forced it shut and decided that I should stay here the night seeing as everything that had once been a threat inside the ruins was no doubt, frozen. I prepared a fire and cooked myself a chicken leg to eat. Since I wasn't going to go anywhere until the storm passed over, I decided to take the time to document the encounter I had with the being.

Half way through writing the journal entry, it occurred to me that the message carved in the wall was referring to the monstrosity that I had released. Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. I had seen what it could do and I realized the danger I had unleashed upon the world. I remembered the last line from that message "Only the blood of dragons shall seal it away." How was I supposed to seal it back where it came when I had no way of getting dragons blood? Even if I could get it I still had no idea how to seal it away. I was an explorer not some arch mage! Sleep did not come easy that night needless to say. When I managed to get to sleep I had nightmare that I was in complete darkness and my body was beginning to freeze solid from my legs up. I awoke just before my head froze over. It was morning at least. I needed to get moving if I was going to undo what I had done.

Once I had my things packed I set out to search for the path back down the mountain. The snowstorm had stopped luckily so finding my way back wasn't to hard. I had a close encounter with a bear but I scared it off by smacking it in the head with my pack. On my way down the mountain I passed by a small camp. I dove behind a rock instinctively knowing it was a bandit camp. However, no one had noticed me because there was no one to notice me. Cautiously, I walked toward the camp and to my horror saw a frozen form of an argonian lying on the ground. I rushed to the tents and saw more frozen bandits. A khajiit, a nord, a dark elf, all lying frozen as if it had happened to them in their sleep. Stumbling backwards I began to make a run for Riverwood, praying to Talos that that thing hadn't struck there too. I was relieved when I reached it to find the small town alive and unfrozen.

"Joirel!" I heard a voice shout from the sawmill. I realized it was my friend Galgar. "Galgar!" I shouted back and began to run towards him. "Joirel! Where in oblivion have you been? You were supposed to be back from your mountain trek yesterday." He said as he hopped down from the sawmill. I decided it was best not to tell him what I had seen. "I was just taking a bit more time to do research." I lied. "Well you certainly took your sweet time! Your disappearance has become quite well known. After all, you have been missing for almost 2 days." said Galgar. I went on to explain to him that I was fine and he needn't worry. Once he decided I was convincing enough, he went about his business and left me be. Quickly I ran to my study (an old shed on the riverside) and began to search through my books for what I had seen. After 2 hours of none stop searching, I didn't find anything that could have been what I unleashed. Giving up, I decided to enjoy the company of my friends at the Sleeping Giant inn. We drank and sang with the bard until sundown when we decided to call it a night.

That night I had the same dream and I awoke thrashing at the air as if to hit an invisible figure in front of me. Sitting up on my bed I started to get up when all of a sudden, it got very cold. I was used to it being cold in Skyrim but it felt like I was back in that blizzard. I dared to get out of bed and began to walk towards the door of the inn. I opened it slowly and my heart stopped. Down the road at the entrance to Riverwood, was a black and white ball of mist, moving in my direction. I slammed the door shut and retreated to my room. Grabbing a jar from my night stand I cast a scroll mage light into it. I had to do something otherwise this thing was going to kill everyone here. I ran outside the inn taking nothing from my room but my jar of mage light. I looked to see where the orb was now and my heart sunk. The orb was coming out from Galgar's house.

"NO!" I screamed and I ran towards the orb, not stopping to think that I couldn't do anything about it. The orb acknowledged me and began to float at me. Realizing I was defenceless, I began to stumble backward and tripped over a stone in the ground. My jar of mage light rolled out from under my cloak. The orb suddenly stopped. Just as it had done in the nordic ruin, the orb let out a hair raising screech and then disappeared off into the darkness. Once I recovered from my shock, I ran to Galgar's house, swung open the door, and fell to my knees. Galgar was lying in bed, frozen solid.

There I stayed until morning. When the sun came up, I rose from my knees and clenched my fists. I had to stop that thing. I decided to find out how. While the guards investigated the corpse of my once good friend, I headed back to my study and grabbed the sketch of the monster that I drew. I then began to run up the mountain pass as fast as I could. I didn't even stop when a troll came running for me but was to slow to even come close to catching me. I was out of breath by the time I reached High Hrothgar and barely had the energy to open the door. Upon entering I was greeted by a very angry greybeard. "What are you doing here? You have disturbed our sacred meditation!" He said to me. Before he could say anything else, I held up my sketch and said "How can I stop this thing?"


	3. Chapter 3: Hope

The greybeard who had confronted my for barging in was completely in shock, when he saw what I had drawn. "That's a- where have you seen this?" he asked in a startled voice. "This just killed a good 20 draugr, froze a bandit camp over, and murdered my best friend! Now tell me how I kill it!" I said while shaking him by his robe. He pushed me off of him and grabbed the sketch from my hand. "This is il news indeed." he said stroking his beard nervously. "The monster you have drawn here is a very rare, very dangerous daedra. It does not come from any known realm of oblivion, we refer to it as oblivion frost. The creature fears the light and thrives in the darkness. However, it will feed off the night until it is powerful enough to come out in the day. I regret to inform you that it cannot be killed, only sealed away by very powerful magic."

The blood from my face drained and my hands felt numb. I couldn't kill it? How could that be true? Then I thought about the message on the wall again. It occurred to me that this was perhaps what the greybeard meant by powerful magic. "So your saying I need dragons blood and some stupid spell to seal this thing away?" I blurted out without thinking. "Well yes but- hang on. How did you know that you needed dragons blood?" he asked me. When I didn't say anything he shouted at me "You have been to the nordic ruins of this mountain haven't you?" I nodded my head.

"Do you realize what you have done? This is your fault! I knew we should have sealed those ruins away, but Arngeir claimed we leave them open for the purpose of research! Now thanks to his greed for history, you have doomed us all." he said to me and then shouted something in ancient dragon that sent me tumbling across the room. Picking myself up I questioned "Surely you can stop it can you not? You are the greybeards, masters of the voice, wisemen of the mountains! I am sure you have the magic power and dragons blood needed to stop it." Letting out another wave of force at me he shouted "Fool! We do not have that kind of power nor do we have dragons blood! No, there is only one person who can help us now."

Getting up again I asked "Who?" The greybeard sighed and cast a spell that created an ball of light in front of me. "The dragon born." he said and the ball transformed into a figure. The figure in was unlike anyone I had ever seen before. His armour was massive and looked like it was made from dragon bone and scale. It let off a glow which I new must have been some form of enchantment. His face was covered by a mask of a dragon priest, possibly Nahkriin. He was Nord no doubt, but what was strange about him was he carried no weapon, instead his hands were lit ablaze with fire magic.

"So your saying that this man is our only hope? Please tell me that you can get a hold of him!" I pleaded. The greybeard stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps, but the dragon born is free to do as he pleases. We cannot force him to help us." he said. Then turning he walked down the hall and disappeared into a room. I heard a bit of whispering, only catching one word, the name Vallis. The greybeard shortly after emerged with three other greybeards and inquired "We are going to call the dragon born. However, you got us into this mess and you're going to help us get out of it."

Then they proceeded to walk out the back doors and into a sort of courtyard. I followed behind but was stopped by one of them. "Keep your distance," he said "the voice is a powerful thing and with all 4 of us using it, you could very well be killed." He then went to join his comrades. They formed a circle and all together began chanting something in ancient dragon, then without any waring, they all shouted at the same time towards the sky. "Now we wait." One of them said. I felt a small spark of hope ignite inside me. Maybe, just maybe if this dragon born fellow came, we could defeat this oblivion spawn. Before I had time to think about it one of the greybeards grabbed my arm and began to tow me to the entrance. "Come. We may not be able to stop this thing, but we can postpone it long enough for the dragon born to arrive. Hopefully."


	4. Chapter 4: The Final Stand

"If we are going to keep this thing at bay long enough for the dragon born to arrive, we need to make sure this town is well lit." said Arngeir. "We need to put candle light and mage light all over the borders." As we walked I asked "Why don't we just take dragons blood from the dragon on top of your mountain?" Arngeir turned to me "How do you know about Paarthurnax?" he snapped. "What? Is he supposed to be a secret? If the weather dies down you can see him plain as day when he spreads his wings." The greybeard seemed taken aback by this. "I must confront him about this," he said scratching his head "but to answer your question, no we can't take dragons blood from him. He would be offended by the use of it."

"He cares more about his self-esteem then the possible fate of skyrim?" I said angrily. "Well do you want to argue with a dragon?" said Arngeir. I decided to stop talking until we reached Riverwood. Once we arrived we got to work immediately. The greybeards began casting spells of mage light around the town and giving everyone a scroll of candle light, explaining the situation. We made sure that every inch of the town was lit despite the many complaints about trouble sleeping. After we had finished setting up our protection, we waited.

Each night the frost would come and each night we would fight it off with everything we had. It mattered not how many times we defeated it, it would come back, each time stronger than the last. We had just about given up any hope of the dragon born coming when one night, he did. He came not because of the greybeards, but because of his father. His father had been killed by a man named Wolfgar and they were holding a funeral for him. We did not wish to disturb him until after the funeral out of respect.

Once all was said and done, the strong yet saddened dragon born stood holding hands with a pale skinned woman and together they took their leave. I almost didn't want to interrupt him for I felt sorry for him. However, I new that the fate of Skyrim rested on the final stand we would have that night. I approached him slowly with the greybeards at my side. Together we explained the situation to the dragon born. After we finished he simply replied with "I see." and then whispered something in the pale woman's ear. She seemed to argue with him but gave in to whatever he was telling her. "Very well, I shall help you." he said turning to face us "Oh and Borri, Wulfgar, and Einarth, since when could you three talk?"

As we prepared for the daedra to return for it's final night, Arngeir explained to Vallis how he had taught the others to control their thum so they could talk. We waited for some time until I spotted it coming down the mountainside. I new from my first look at it that our defences would be useless against it at this point. Our only hope, was the dragon born. I turned to him saying "Are you ready?" To which he replied with a nod.

Once the mist reached Riverwood, it began to take on a form that it hadn't before, several actually. It transformed into random people, a bandit, a woman, an Argonian, Khajiit, High Elf. I was wondering what it was doing when I looked over and saw Vallis. He was standing motionless, his mask in his hand, his eyes filled with pain. It then came to me. These were all the people he killed. I watched him helplessly as each image flickered in and out of existence until it finally came to one last image. A young boy no more then 12 years old. This caused something to snap in Vallis. He put his mask on his face and then his hands began to glow.  
I had not seen a spell as powerful as the one he conjured in his hand. I could feel the energy radiate from it. He held it with both hands above his head until it was as twice large as his head. Then with a roar of rage he threw the ball of light into the image of the child and the daedra screeched in pain. To my horror it did not run off. Instead it began to take on a new form. It morphed and shaped itself into a creature standing on two enormous legs with arms that reached the ground. A head formed in between it's shoulders and 3 talons shot out of it's hands. Then without hesitation, it pounced at Vallis.

I barely had time to react as I watched the monster tackle the dragon born to the ground. It began to breath ice all over his armour causing it to freeze over. Before it could completely freeze Vallis, he shouted "FUS RO DAH!" which sent the creature flying head over heels into a nearby building, destroying the roof. The creature just got back up and went right back to attacking Vallis. It fired frost magic after frost magic as Vallis countered with thum and spell. It was like watching the divines duke it out. Everytime Vallis hit with a move that would have killed anything else, it just got back up as if nothing happened. It occured to me that if we were going to defeat it we needed to lead it to where I found it and seal it back into the stone coffin. I shouted at the greybeards "We need to get it up the mountain!"

The dragon born let out another thum sending the monster into a tree then turned to us saying "Go! I'll bring it up there!" We didn't hesitate. All 5 of us began to run up the mountain with Vallis and the Oblivion Frost closely following. By the time we had reached the ruin, the dragon born was almost out of energy. "I can't keep this up much longer!" he shouted as he hurled another spell at the demon "My magicka is almost depleted." We led the daedra down the halls and spiral staircases to the stone from which it came. "Vallis!" I yelled at him from the stone coffin "We need to end this NOW!" The greybeards pulled out a very old looking scroll and began to recite words that caused the coffin to glow white.

"Vallis we need you to cast the final part of this spell. We do not have the power to!" cried Arngeir. Vallis knocked the beast into a wall and began to recite the final line of the scroll. Before he could finish the daedra pounced at him. It was then that I did the bravest, stupidest thing I had ever done in my life. I put myself between Vallis and the daedra and boy did it hurt. The thing tackled me to the ground and attempted to jump at Vallis, but I held onto it. No matter how much it clawed, scratched and froze me I held on. Then with a final word, Vallis drew his own blood with a dagger into the coffin and the daedra was sucked back into the depths of Oblivion. I watched as it clawed at the sides of the coffin attempting to hold on but it was for nothing. The coffin sealed and with a final screech, it was gone. The I blacked out.

I wasn't completely sure what happened in the time that I was unconscious, all I knew was the entrance to the ruins were sealed, Vallis kept me alive with his restoration magic, and there was much rejoicing. When I came to I was lying on a bed in the Sleeping Giant. Arngeir was at the end of my bed. "It is over." he said "You are a very brave man Joirel." I sat up and instantly regretted it because I had a massive head ache. Wincing in pain I asked "Where is Vallis?" Arngeir stood up "He has gone his own way with his vampire companion." he said.

"Vampire? So that's why that lady was so pale." I said. "Do you think we will see him again?"  
Arngeir walked towards the door and stopped in the doorway. Turning his head he spoke "Only time will tell." With that, he was gone. Thus ends my story. No longer shall I go adventuring because of it. I am happy where I am now and should Vallis ever need my help he will no where to find me, working away at the sawmill in Riverwood or practising mage light without a scroll.


End file.
